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CEREMONIES IN COMMEMORATION 

OF THE ONE HUNDREDTH ANNI- 
VERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

PHILADELPHIA FEBRUARY 12 1909 



MILITARY ORDER OF THE LOYAL LEGION 
OF THE UNITED STATES 



COMMANDERY OF THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA 



PHILADELPHIA 1909 



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Hrcvi-t l.iiiit.-Cnldncl John P. Nicihu^son Compiler 



Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the 
United States 

COMMANDERY OF THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA 



Celebration of the One Hundredth Anniversary 

OF THE 

Birth of Abraham Lincoln 



American Academy of Music 
February 12 1909 P. M. 



" I am not bound to win 
But I am bound to be true." 

— Abraham Lincoln 



Concert from 7.15 P. M. to 8.15 P. M. 

The Band of the United States Marine Corps 
Professor WM. H. SANTELMANN Leader 



PROGRAMME 

8.15 p. M. 

SCENE 

The Birthplace of Lincoln 

Hardin (La Rue Co.) Kentucky February 12 1809 



PRESIDING 

Rear-Admiral George W. Melville U. S. N. 

Commander of the Commandery 



"REVEILLE" 
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Commemoration of the One Hundredth 

Anniversary of the Birth of 

Abraham Lincoln. 

Rear Admiral George W. MelviIvI^E U. S. N. Presiding. 



Companions, Shipmates, and Ladies: 

It is not necessary for me to announce to you the reasons for 
our meeting here tonight. 

I am pleased to say that the Nation has set apart tliis day 
in commemoration of the birth of the greatest American of 
modern times. We have had our Washington, Hamilton, Cal- 
houn, and Webster of more modern times. Men of all shades 
of pohtics and policies, but it remained for the greatest glory 
to fall upon the head and shoulders of the great emancipator, 
and though repubUcan in name, the greatest democrat in all 
that it means as a man of the people, Abraham Lincoln. 

We are here to add our meed of praise and show our apprecia- 
tion of America's greatest statesman, and who is better qualified, 
or more appreciative of Abraham Lincoln, than these old 
warriors of the Army and Navy. Men old and worn, wlio in 
the glad young days of their youth gave all we had, of life and 
limb, to uphold the hands of our President and save a Nation 
and the Liberties of our people for all time. 



PRAYER. 

Captain J. Richards Boyub D. D. 

Almighty and Most Merciful God, Our Heavenly Father, 
before the mountains were brought forth, or ever Thou hadst 
formed the eartli and the world, even from everlasting to ever- 
lasting Thou art God! Thou art the blessed and onl\- Potentate, 
the Iving of Rings and Lord of Lords, who alone hath immortal- 
ity, and who dwclleth in the light that no man can approach 
unto! Heaven is Thy throne, the earth is Thy footstool, and 
Tliy Kingdom ruleth over all! 

In the presence and in the name of this great outpouring 
of American patriotism and brotherhood, and on this inspiring 
Centennial Anniversary, we humbly and reverently adore and 
worship Thee, and solemnly await Thy divine presence and 
blessing. 

We thank Thee, O God, for Thy gracious and manifest Provi- 
dence which has been vouchsafed our Nation from its birth in 
this fair city nearly a century and a tliird ago. We thank Thee 
for the sagacious and sacrificial men who here and then gave 
to mankind a new civilization, consecrated to human liberty, 
and — appealing to Thee for guidance, — pledged to its defence 
their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. We thank 
Thee for our brave forefathers who with bleeding feet bore the 
new flag over the sanguinary fields of the War of Independence; 
and for that glorious soldier and patriot, tiie noble Washington, 
who led them to final victory, and whose cliaracter and fame 
are enshrined in our hearts forever. We thank Thee for the long 
and unbroken line of statesmen, educators anrl heroes who, 
under Thy Providence, have guided our public destinies on 
from that early day until the present hour, in ever increasing 
honor and power and glory. 

We thank Thee most especially tonight for our heroes of the 
War of the Rebellion, in the field, the state, and the church, who 
amid sufferings incredibli- and with foilitmle iii\ineible rescued 



our beloved Nation when it was violently threatened with dis- 
memberment and death. And above all these we thank Thee 
now and always for that supreme and colossal man, Abraham 
Lincoln, who stands forth forever among these later heroes, taller 
than the tallest, greater than the greatest, better than the best. 
Thine own Infinite Hand fashioned him from the clay of our 
common humanity. Thy ministry trained him in the severe 
struggles of his early life for his high responsibilities and his 
unexampled burdens and achievements. The light of Thy 
Spirit baptized his mighty brain. The love of Thy heart filled 
his great soul. The rectitude of Thy eternal law was enthroned 
within his incorruptible conscience. He was Thine own chosen 
Apostle of patriotism and liberty to our imperilled people. 
We most devoutly thank Thee for his providential call and ap- 
pearance in the hour of our deep darkness and cruel trial; and 
for the magnetism of his person, the eloquence of his tongue and 
pen, the wisdom of his mind, and the boundless tenderness and 
toleration of his loving heart. We thank Thee for the freedom 
he gave to a race long oppressed in bondage, for the civic and 
moral regeneration he wrought out for the whole Nation, and 
for the fact that his sacred blood, — so foully and wickedly shed- 
has cemented for all time the foundations of our Republic. 
Ivike Abraham of old this modern Abraham was the friend 
of God and he is the father of new generations of faithful men. 
He was Thy servant ,and he is our beloved Chief. 

We pray Thy blessing to rest upon his name, his memory, 
his deeds and his injfluence forevermore. We implore Thy 
favor upon his only living son and his family; upon all the 
sur\avors of the Civil War and their loved ones; upon the dis- 
tinguished and partiotic Order under whose auspices we are 
here assembled ; upon their Companions throughout the land ; 
and upon all similar assemblages of our people who are commem- 
orating this anniversary. We beseech Thee to bless the President 
of the United States who is so soon to lay aside the cares of State, 
and his chosen successor who within a few days is to assume his 
high and responsible duties. Grant, we pray Thee, that inter- 
national peace, domestic tranquility, and great prosperity may 
abound under his administration. Bless all our States, — their 
officers, their people, their business, their schools, their charities 
and their homes. Bless this great and kindly city and all our 



coinimmilics. Lead our Nation forward through all coming 
years in thi- unfolding of manly and womanlv character, in 
undisturbed brotlierhood, and in Tliy faith and love, and save 
our children's children through all generations. And unto Thee, 
Father, Son and Holy Ghost, we shall ascribe praise, and honor, 
and glory, world wit lion t end. Amen. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

Brevet Major -General Joshua L. Chamberlain. 

Great crises in human affairs call out the great in men. 
They call for great men. This greatness is of quality rather 
than quantity. It is not intensified selfhood, nor multiplied 
possessions. It implies extraordinary powers to cope with diffi- 
cult situations; but it implies still more, high purpose — the 
intent to turn these powers to the service of man. Its essence 
is of magnanimity. Some have indeed thought it great to seize 
occasion in troubled times to aggrandize themselves. And 
something slavish in the lower instincts of human nature seems 
to grant their claim. Kings and conquerors have been named 
"great" because of the magnificence of the servitude they have 
been able to command, or the vastness of their conquests, or 
even of the ruin they have wrought. 

But true greatness is not in nor of the single self; it is of 
that larger personality, that shared and sharing life with others, 
in which, each giving of his best for their betterment, we are 
greater than ourselves; and self-surrender for the sake of that 
great belonging, is the true nobility. 

The heroes of history are not self-seekers; they are saviors. 
They give of their strength to the weak, the wronged, the 
imperilled. Suffering and sacrifice they take on themselves. 
Summoned by troubles, they have brought more than peace; 
they have brought better standing and understanding for human 
aspirations. Their mastery is for truth and right; that is for 
man. Hence they are reverenced and beloved through the 
ages. If we mourn the passing of the heroic age, all the more 
conspicuous and honored is heroic example, still vouchsafed to 
ours. 

There are crises yet, when powers and susceptibihties of 
good fevered with bUnd unrest and trembling for embodiment 
seem turned to mutual destruction. Happy then the hour when 
comes the strong spirit, master because holding self to a higher 



obedience, the impress of whose character is command. He 
comes to mould these elemental forces not to his own will, but 
to their place in the appointed order of the ongoing world. For 
lack of such men the march of human right has so many times 
been halted — hence the dire waste of noble endeavor; grandeur 
of martyrdoms uplifted in vain; high moments of possibility 
lost to mankind. 

There came upon our country, in our day, a crisis, a momen- 
tous peril, a maddened strife such as no description can portray, 
nor simile shadow fortli ; volcanic eruption, earthquake, up- 
whelming seas of human force involving in their sweep agonies 
and destruction such as the catastrophies of Italy never wrought; 
not merely the measurable material loss, but the immeasurable 
spiritual cost; the maddened attempt to rend asunder this or- 
dained Union, this People of the United States of America, 
a government by divine right, if anything on earth can be so. 
The shock was deep and vast. It was the convulsion of a historic 
and commissioned people. It was the dissolution of covenants 
that had held diverse rights and powers in poise; coUision of 
forces correlated to secure unity and order, — now set loose 
against each other, working destruction. It was more than the 
conflict of laws, clash of interests, disharmony of ideas and prin- 
ciples. It was the sundering of being; war of self against self; 
of sphere against sphere in the concentric order of this great 
composite national life of ours. 

For us the aggregate human wisdom had been found wanting. 
Conventions, Congresses and compromises had failed; the 
heights of argument, sentiment and eloquence had been scaled 
in vain; the mighty bond of historic memories, patriotism and 
christian fellowship had been dissolved in that ferment. Had 
a committee of wisest men been chosen, — expert doctors of law, 
medicine and divinity, — nay the twelve apostles themselves 
been summoned, — to determine what combination of qualities 
must mark the man who could mount above this storm, make 
his voice heard amidst these jarring elements, and command 
the "law of the mind" to prevail over the "law in the members," 
they could not have completed their inventory, nor have found 
the man of such composition. 

It was a divine providence which brought forth the man, to 
execute the divine decree, in a crisis of human historv. 



It was a strange presentment and personality, — this deliverer 

this servant and master, this follower and leader of the law; 

strange, and not readily accepted of men. Out of the unknown, 
and by ways that even he knew not, came to this place of power, 
Abraham Lincoln. 

He came mysteriously chosen; not by the custom of hereditary 
descent, not by the concurrence of his peers, but by the instinc- 
tive voice of a predestined people. Called because he was chosen ; 
chosen, because he was already choice. The voice came to him 
as to the deliverer of old: "Be strong, and oj a good courage, 
jar thou must go with this people unto the land which the Lord 
hath sworn to their fathers to give them. And thou shall cause 
them to inherit it!" 

This one man called to the task. MilUons of them could not 
meet it. He could. The order to be strong and of a good 
courage came to him because he was that already. There was 
that in him which this order appealed to and rested on. A 
weak man could uot even receive it. 

So, this deliverer of ours. Courtly manners and culture of the 
schools he did not bring. But moulded and seasoned strength, 
calm courage, robust sense, he brought; and a heart to humanize 
it all. His inherent and potential greatness was his power of 
reason and sense of right, and a magnanimity which regarded 
the large and long interests of man more than the near and small 
of self. Strength and courage are much the same; in essence, 
in action, and in passion, — the ability to bear. These qualities 
were of the whole man; — mind, heart and will. Intellect keen 
yet broad ; able in both insight and comprehension ; taking in 
at once the details of a situation, and also its unity and larger 
relations. He knew men in their common aspects, and he knew 
man in his potential excellence. Courage of will was his: power 
to face dangers without and within; to resist the pressure of 
force or of false suggestion; standing to his conviction; firm 
against minor persuasions; silencing temptation. Courage 
of the heart; power to resolve, and to endure; to suffer and to 
wait. His patience was pathetic. 

Courage of faith; belief in the empowering force of his obH- 
gation. Wise to adjust policies to necessity, he kept sight of 
his ideal. Amidst mockeries of truth, he was "obedient unto 
the heavenly vision." Through the maze of false beacons 



and bewildering beckonings, he steered by the star. Above the 
recalling bugles of disaster and defeat he heard the voice of his 
consecration, and held it pledge and prophecy. These qualities, 
coordinated and commanded by wise judgment, and sustained 
by a peculiar buoyancy of temperament, constituted a personal- 
ity remarkable, if not solitary, among the great men of our time. 

Before this assembly of the Loyal Legion it is natural to con- 
sider Abraham Lincoln as he was presented to our observation 
and experience in the military sphere; not as Chief Executive 
in the common plirase of ordinary times, but as representative 
of the nation before the world, and clothed ^^^th its power. 
That is, as Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy of the 
United States, in an insurrection so vast as to involve nations 
over the seas. A secondary title might be: The Revelation of 
the War Powers of the President. 

The situation Lincoln confronted was without parallel; in 
magnitude, in complexity, in consequence. The immediate 
and pressing object was manifest. To overcome the embattled 
hostile forces; to quell the rebellion; to restore the honor and 
authority of the American Union; to preserve the existence of 
the people of the United States. 

But this involved much more. There are no single lines in 
human affairs. Cross-currents of interest, sentiment and 
passion confused the motives, embarrassed the movements, 
and clouded the issues, of this new declaration that this people 
should be one and free. 

Much had to be met that force could not manage; much that 
sharpest insight and outlook could not foresee. Not only the 
direct event of battle was involved, but the collateral effects 
and continuing consequences; the far-reaching interests of a great 
people yet to be; the interests of related nations, and of humanity 
itself. 

Little experienced in administrative functions and unfamiliar 
with the art of war, he had to take the chief responsibility in 
both. He had much to learn, and was willing to learn it. But 
not in haste. In some matters he came slowly to the execution 
of his conviction, as possibly to the conviction itself. But 
his judgments were based on what was sincere in his nature, 
and large in motive. That he took no counsel from fear is mani- 
fest. Evading the assassins hired to waylay his path to the 



place of duty, and the no less infamous plots to prevent the count- 
ing of the electoral vote and the announcement of his election, 
he stood up and faced the menacing, cleaving masses in the 
beleagured capital. 

He chose his cabinet of official advisers in a novel way, and, one 
might think, hazardous; but it showed the breadth of his patriot- 
ism and the courage of his independence. Instead of seeking 
those of like thinking \^'ith himself, or likely to make a unity 
among themselves on public questions, he called men who were 
rival candidates or popular in their respective localities; even 
offering places to distinguished statesmen in Virginia and North 
Carolina. And Seward, Chase, Cameron, Welles, Bates, Blair 
and Smith, and afterwards Stanton, — what measure of agree- 
ment mth him or each other, on any point of public policy, 
could be expected from a council like this! Most of these men, 
no doubt, at first thought slightingly of him. But he converted 
or over-awed them all. He went straight on. 

He found more trouble in the military sphere. The popular, 
or political principle of appointment would not work so well 
here. It took some time and trial to rectify this, and make 
practical tests of ability the basis. It was unfortunate that it 
took so long to secure a nominal military chief, who had the 
soldierly brain and eye and hand to command the confidence 
of his subordinates as well as of his superiors. 

But even among his generals in the field there was a lack of 
harmony and a redundance of personality. He had to over- 
rule this. He was their responsible commander. He made him- 
self their practical adviser. This latter function some of them 
undertook to make reciprocal. They did not gain much by 
it. His sharp rejoinders, winged with wit and feathered with 
humor, — as apposite as unexpected, — stirred the smiles of all 
but the immediate recipients. But they commanded the sober 
respect of all, as uncommon lessons of good common sense, — 
which is also and always good tactics. 

We behold him solitary in the arena; surrounded by various 
antagonists and uusympathising spectators. He had to deal 
with cabinet. Congress, committees, diplomatists, cranks, 
wiseacres, as well as the embattled enemy on land and sea. 

Sorely tried by long delays in the field, he was vexed by the 
incessant clamor of the excited and unthinking, and of in- 

13 



fluential persons and papers that beset him with the demand 
to free the slaves, and the reckless cry, "On to Richmond," 
which may have forced campaigns of disaster. Perils from 
lurking traitors in the capital, pesterings of open or secret ene- 
mies and rash and weak advisers, augmented the diJTiculties 
of the momentous contention. All the while, with heart-crushing 
tilings to bear, which he would not openly notice, — nor let us, 
now! We cannot but wonder how he ever lived through, to 
crown his work witli a death so tragic, an ascension so trans- 
figuring. 

But hevvas appointed for great ends; and this was his guaranty 
of life ! 

Let us note more particularly some of the difficulties which 
environed the president growing out of the magnitude and ex- 
terior complications of this great rebellion. 

At first wc looked upon the rebellion as a domestic insurrection, 
to be dealt with by the provisions and processes of municipal 
law. But facts forced us from that theory. Laws, no less than 
tactics, change with magnitudes. As the range and force of 
the rebellion grew, and conditions became more complex, the 
president had to enlarge his policy, and the grounds of its 
justification. 

One of the first warlike acts of the Confederate States was to 
send forth armed cruisers, commissioned by "Letters of Marque" 
to prey upon our merchant-ships and commerce on the seas. 
We could not treat these cruisers as a domestic insurrectionary 
force, because they were operating on the "high seas," — the 
road of the nations; nor could we treat them as pirates, 
and apply to their captured crews the summary process of a 
short rope at the yard-arm, because they were only "domestic 
enemies," and did not come under the "pirate" definition of 
international law, as "enemies of mankind." So we had to 
submit to their enjoying certain privileges recognized by the 
law of nations, and admit their captured crews to exchange 
as prisoners of war. 

Nor could we treat the armed forces of the rebellion as a 
"mob," because they were in such force and form that they had 
to be treated under the laws of war, — presumed to be part of 
the law of nations. Yet we could not recognize the Confederacy 
as a nation, and a proper party to such agreement or practice. 

H 



Moreover, the president had instituted a blockade of Southern 
ports, a measure better known to international, than to domestic 
law. So it came about that the very magnitude of the rebellion, 
and its extent on land and sea, compelled us, both on grounds 
of public law and on grounds of humanity, to extend to our 
formidable antagonists some degree of the regulations known 
as "belUgerent rights." But bclHgerents are presumed, in law 
at least, to be aliens to each other; not fellow-citizens. Hence 
great perplexity for the president. 

But the situation now affected other nations. Here opens a 
painful chapter of that sad experience. And I have to ask your 
attention for a moment to difficulties outside the domestic 
sphere, which from the very first to the very last, were among 
the most trying of the president's experiences. He was con- 
fronted by an exterior circle of hostile intent and action in the 
strange unfriendliness of nations, — perhaps I should say, gov- 
ernments of nations, — historically and racially nearest to us, 
and professing principles and sentiments deeply accordant with 
our own. 

The governments of England and France did not wait for a 
distinct good understanding upon international relations. 
They took the earhest possible occasion to declare their neutral- 
ity, and to put the insurgents on the full footing of lawful belliger- 
ents. They even denominated them as "States," thus ignoring 
their character as insurgents. This was the more trying because 
early in the discussion of the situation, our Government had dis- 
tinctly declared to the British Government that "No proposition 
would be considered which did not regard this as a domestic 
insurrection, with which foreign nations had no concern." 

This recognition by England and France, followed by other 
governments, gave the Confederate cruisers wide privileges 
on the "high seas," and in foreign ports, and a certain prestige 
to the Confederate claim before the world, 

Then came the severe trial for the president when Captain 
Wilkes of our navy took from an EngHsh steamer on the high 
seas Messieurs Mason and Slidell, — diplomatic agents of the Con- 
federacy for France and England, — and conveyed them to Boston 
in custody; our Secretary of the Navy officially congratulating 
Wilkes, and the House of Representatives voting him the thanks 
of Congress; the British Government in a rage; Lord Russell in 

15 



imperious tones demanding an apology, the instant delivery 
of Mason and Slidell, and the dismissal of Wilkes from our 
service; forthwith embarking troops for Canada, and gathering 
vast munitions of war; engaging the whole power of the Empire 
to enforce his demand if it was not instantly obcved. The 
wisdom and moral strength with which the president met this 
most difficult situation,— yielding in a manner appeasing England 
and not humiliating to our Country,— is of highest example. 

Then during all the years of the war, England permitted the 
building and equipping within her jurisdiction and territory 
of ships intended as Confederate cruisers, and for the known 
purpose of warring upon the commerce of the United States. 
This went on in disregard of every protest, until the end of the 
war, we were in a position to ask England to consider the ques- 
tion of damages; and a Board of Arbitration awarded as a 
minimum, fifteen millions of dollars. Had the decision been 
otherwise, and England sustained, we probably could have borne 
It. But England, in case of a rebellion in some of her depend- 
encies, would have been astonished at the fieets of rebel cruisers 
investigating her commerce on all seas. 

At best, France and England were reluctant and perfunctory 
observers of neutrality, and anything but cordial well-wishers. 
All the while they were eager for a pretence of reason to recog- 
nize the independence of the Confederate States. 

It was beheved by us all in the army marching to the unknown 
field predestined to be immortal Gettysburg, that upon the issue 
of this battle hung the fate of the nation; that should Lee's 
army gain a decided advantage here, these two governments 
would seize the moment to declare the independent sovereignty 
of the Confederate States, and accord such recognition and sup- 
port as would bring the end of our great endeavor. You may 
well believe that this conviction had part in the superhuman 
marching and fighting which made that a field of deathless glory. 
It gave us new devotion. It seemed to lift the whole scene and 
scale of the contention to a higher plane. We were fighting 
not only forces in the field, but with spiritual foes in high places, 
with "the princes of the powers of the air." 

A serious flank-movement, which gave the president much 
anxiety, was the occupation of Mexico by the French Emperor. 
After various vexing schemes, he chose the darkest hour for 

i6 



that Republic and ours, to send a French army to force a mon- 
archy, with an Austrian arch-duke as Emperor, on the people 
of Mexico. Besides the direct effect on us, this scheme of plant- 
ing a hostile monarchial power on our southern border, had an 
ulterior motive, — to gain a vantage ground from which, by some 
turn of tangled affairs, to recover a hold on the old Louisiana 
tract, and the control of the lower Mississippi. In his eagerness 
Louis over-reached himself. His formal proposal to the Con- 
federates to cede to him, in the name of France, the great State 
of Texas, angered them, and lost him the game. But he kept 
his army in Mexico, fighting its people, with MaximiUian as 
nominal head, or catapult, and under the increasing remonstrance 
of our far-sighted president. 

Some of us remember, at the disbandment of the Army of 
the Potomac, being retained in the service and assigned to a 
mysterious Provisional Corps of veterans; the intent and mission 
of which, we were confidentially informed, was to go down 
with Sheridan to assist Louis Napoleon to get his French army 
out of Mexico. A personal reconnoissance of Sheridan in Mexico, 
and the virile diplomacy of Seward, deprived us of that outing. 
The French army with its monarchy vanished from the shores 
of Mexico, leaving a stain on the pride of France and a fearful 
fate for MaximiUian and poor Carlotta. 

Contemplate for a moment, what would have been the situ- 
ation, if in any event, Louis had got his foothold in Louisiana 
under color of title ; and what the task might have been for either 
the North or the South, or both together, to recover that holding 
and the control of the mighty Mississippi, sea-road for the com- 
merce of half our Atlantic slope. 

Let us now take a closer view, and consider the great em- 
barrassments of the president in treating a domestic insurrec- 
tion under the la\vs of war; when compelled to use the miUtary 
forces of the nation, not in aid of the civil authority, and under 
its regulation, as in common cases, but to replace and super- 
sede it. 

In spirit war and law are opposed: the end of one is the 
beginning of the other. Still, upon occasion, they are made 
reciprocally supporting. War is brought to support law, and 
law is applied to regulate war. An armed rebellion is war, 
and all its consequences are involved. We did not realize this 

17 



at first. Military force in time of war stands on a very different 
basis from that when it is called to the aid of the civil authoritv. 
The strict limitations in the latter case are much relaxed; indeed 
quite replaced. Military law regulates the conduct of armies, 
and is prescribed by the civil authority. Martial law is some- 
thing beyond this; it is the arbitrary will of the commander, and 
operates upon civilians and citizens. This justifies itself by 
"necessity," wliich, it is said, "knows no law." So things have 
to be done which in time of peace are illegal ; yet are justified by 
the inherent law of sovereignty, — the law of life. 

I shall not attempt to enumerate all the consequences in- 
volved in the operation of beUigerent rights. By the law of 
nations strictly speaking provinces or communities in revolt 
have no rights. Concessions to such are not made on their 
account, but from considerations of policy on the part of the 
dominant state, or of humanity. 

Some of the privileges granted to recognized belligerents 
are well known; such as flags and passages of truce for occasions 
of need or mercy; exchange of prisoners; immunit}' of hospitals 
and perhaps of homes. But on the other hand, and for the larger 
range, there are corresponding liabilities involved in these 
"rights," and of a most serious nature. They follow the right 
to capture, confiscate and destroy enemy's property; to arrest, 
capture and imprison persons of the enemy; to employ and 
emancipate slaves of the enemy; to suspend or reduce civil and 
political rights of a community brought under the jurisdiction 
of arms, leaving them only the rights of a conquered territory 
under the laws of war. 

This would seem to be enough to task the best ability and con- 
science in any case. But in a case of intensified and enlarged 
domestic insurrection, where the insurgents are claiming in- 
dependent sovereign capacity, denied and resisted by the parent 
people, which on the other hand regards them as rightly and in 
fact part of itself, — how to concede belligerent rights and yet 
avoid acknowledgment of the competency of the antagonist to 
be a party to the agreement, is a task for tact and wisdom of 
no common order. And the necessity of applying the laws of 
war to fellow citizens must bring grievous problems to the 
head and heart. 

Practical questions also were forced upon the president, beyond 

i8 



the sphere of ordinary peace or war, for the determination of 
which there was no precedent, nor certain warrant. Questions 
of statesmanship, of political ethics, and constitutional inter- 
pretation, such as kept our Congress and Supreme Court busy 
for years afterwards, had to be acted on practically and promptly 
by him. 

He took to himself no credit for anything. After years of 
the struggle and many dark and discouraging aspects of the is- 
sue, just before the yet darker depths of the terrible campaign 
of '64, he writes this self-abasing sentence: "I claim not to have 
controlled events; but confess that events have controlled me." 
We can judge better about that, perhaps, than he could, envel- 
oped in the mesh of circumstance. We know how disturbed 
were the polarities of compelling forces, and how firm the guid- 
ance, how consummate the mastery. To our eyes he sat high 
above the tumult, watching events, meeting them, turning them 
to serve the great purpose. So far and so far only, did events 
control him. 

He felt himself upborne by the power of his obligation, as 
charged with a duty like that of the Roman consul: "to see 
to it that the Republic suffered no detriment." The rule of 
such emergency is that, — also Roman, — which constitutions 
involve but do not enunciate, warrantable only in the last ex- 
tremity: "Salus populi, suprema lex." The salvation of the 
people is supreme law ! 

Take the instance of the Emancipation Proclamation, I 
remember well that many high officers of our army disapproved 
this in heart and mind, if they dared not in speech. They 
thought the president had no right to proclaim this intention 
nor power to carry it into effect. But they had not deeply 
enough studied the implications of the constitution of their 
country, or those of the laws of war. They had to take a post- 
graduate course in their own profession. Indeed, upon political 
matters the habitual thought of us all was related to a con- 
dition of domestic peace, and did not contemplate war at the 
center of life. 

So our Congress, just before the breaking out of the rebellion, 
in the hope to avoid war and to save the Union, had unani- 
mously passed a resolution that "neither the Federal govern- 
ment nor the free States had any right to legislate upon or in- 

19 



terfere with slavery in any of the slave-holding States of the 
Union." This seems more like an utterance under duress, than 
a deliberate interpretation of the Constitution. They did not 
foresee the construction as well as the destruction involved in 
war. 

Even for the president there was a progressive revelation. 
At his inauguration he had publicly alTirmed that he had no 
intention, directly or indirectly, of interfering with the in- 
stitution of slavery in the States where it existed. "I believe 
I have not the right, and I am sure I have not the desire," he 
adds. He was then viewing the matter under the precedents 
of peaceful times. The deep reach of his constitutional powers 
in time of supreme peril of the Country had not been brought 
to light as it was under the tremendous tests of a vast and 
devastating war. It came to him but slowly. He seemed re- 
luctant to avail himself of it. Later we find him sa)-ing in 
effect: "My purpose is to save this Union. I will save it without 
slavery, if I can; with slavery, if I must." 

When in the course of events the war-powers of the president 
emerged, they appeared with a content and extent not dreamed 
of before. He took them to a high tribunal. He almost made 
a covenant with God that if the terrible blow threatening the 
life of the country was broken at Antietam, he would emancipate 
the slaves in the territory of the rebellion. The thought was not 
new. The laws of war gave to commanders in the field the right 
to break down all the forces supporting the enemy; and two of 
his generals had declared the freedom of the slaves within their 
military jurisdiction. He promptly rebuked them and counter- 
manded their proclamations. This was not work for a sub- 
ordinate. So grave, so deep-reaching, so far-reaching, were 
its necessary effects, he reserved the prerogative for the chief 
commander and the last resort. 

This was not because of immaturity of purpose, nor fear to act; 
but because he chose to wait until the terrible sufferings and cost 
of war made this measure seem a mitigation, and the right and 
necessity of it so clear that the Country and the world nmst 
acquiesce. He did this, not because slavery was the cause of 
the war, but because it was a muniment of ivar waged against the 
life of the people. He set the appointed time and conditions 
when, within the territorv of the rebellion, the slaves should be 



freed. The time came, — and the proclamation, deep with 
thought as with consequence. This, the conclusion: 

"And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, 
warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I in- 
voke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious 
favor of Almighty God!" 

Observe the grounds of this: Justice, the eternal law of right- 
eousness; political right, warrant of the constitution; military 
necessity, for the salvation of the people; the approving judg- 
ment of man; the confirmation of God. This justification of 
the act was the revelation of the man. Without precedent 
of authority, or parallel in history, but as it were, "sub specie 
eterni" — in the aspect of the infinite, he spoke freedom to the 
slave! That voice was of the ever-coming "Word" that works 
God's will in His World ! 

Lo ! this the outcome of belligerent rights, and the wilful appeal 
to the arbitrament of arms! Astounding annunciation of the 
powers of the president for the people's defence; and the dis- 
covery that not only military law, but also the absolute authority 
and summary processes of martial law, are part of the Constitu- 
tion, part of the supreme law of the land. Had the leaders 
in the arrogant pretension of self-sufficiency and the frenzied 
rush to war, understood the reach of this, they would have hesi- 
tated to commit their cause to the wager of battle. And any 
future plotter against the nation's integrity and truth, may well 
pause before waking that slumbering lion at the gates of her 
life! 

It was, indeed, a "domestic problem" which Lincoln had be- 
fore him, — a mde one, and a far one, — to save his country. 
We think it was worth saving. The world thinks so, too: 

An outcome of Lincoln's heart and mind was the projection 
into military law of a deep and wide humanity. We well knew 
his sympathy and tenderness towards the young soldier and the 
all-surrendering mother. He often superseded the death 
sentence for sleeping on post, pronounced upon the new-coming 
youth unseasoned by discipline and the habit of hardship. 

All the lessons drawn from that stern experience of his, are 
embodied in the famous General Order Number loo, pubUshed 
to the army in 1863. 

It was a reconstruction, a regeneration, of the rules of war. 



The necessity of stern justice and rigorous discipline recognized; 
but all tempered by great-hearted recognition of the manhood 
of man! The notable thing about this is, that it has been 
adopted, word for word, by nation after nation, and is to-day 
part of the international law of the civilized world. 

And the power of this nation's influence in the world 
to-day, — the reason why her intervention sets free an oppressed 
people, her word speaks peace to embattled nations, and her 
wish prevents the dismemberment of empires, — is not so much 
in the might of her fleets and armies, splendid as these are, but 
because of her character, the confidence of the nations in her 
justice, and truth, and honor! Look at her I Her mission is 
peace and light and liberty! Her flag speaks hope to man! 

Who can tell what part in all this is Abraham Lincoln ! 

I would speak now of him as he was seen and known more 
intimately by the army in the field. We had often opportunity 
to see him, — for some occasions, too often. Sometimes he came 
for conference with commanders amidst actual conditions, 
where he could see for himself, and not through casual or official 
reports. Sometimes, from conferences with cabinet, or Con- 
gressmen, or ministers of other powers, holding suggestions 
of deep import. 

But always after a great battle, and especially disaster, we 
were sure to see him, slow riding through camp, with outward 
or inward-searching eyes, — questioning and answering heart. 
His figure was striking; stature and bearing uncommon and 
commanding. The slight stoop of the shoulders, an attitude 
of habitual in-wrapped thought, not of weakness, of any sort. 
His features, strong; if homely, then because standing for 
rugged truth. In his deep, over-shadowed eyes, a look as 
from the innermost of things. Over all this would come at 
times a play, or pathos, of expression in which his deeper per- 
sonality outshone. His voice was rich ; its modulations, musical ; 
his words most fitting. 

I have scarcely seen picture or sculpture which does him 
justice. The swarm of caricaturists with their various motives 
and instructions, have given a very wrong impression of him, — 
unfortunately too lasting. There was something of him, — 
and the greatest and most characteristic, — which refused to 
be imaged in earthly form. 



In his action there was a gravity and moderation which the 
trivial might misinterpret as awkwardness, but which came from 
the dignity of reserved power. Those who thought to smile 
when that figure, — mounting, with the tall hat, to near seven 
feet, — was to be set on a spirited horse for a ceremonial excursion, 
were turned to admiration at the easy mastery he showed; 
and the young-staflf game of testing civihans by touching up 
the horses to headlong speed returning over a course they had 
mischievously laid, with sudden crossings of old rifle-pit and 
ditch, proved a boomerang for them, when he would come out 
the only rider square in his saddle, with head level and rightly 
crowned. 

In familiar intercourse he was courteous and kindly. He 
seemed to find rest in giving way to a strain of humor that was 
in him. On a moot question, his good story, sharp with apt 
analogy, was likely to close the discussion, — sometimes at the 
expense of a venturesome proposer. There was a roll of mischief 
in his eye, which eased the situation. 

We were glad to see that facility of counterpoise in him; 
for we knew too deeply well, the burden that was even then 
pressing on his spirit, and our laughter was light and brief. 

But always he wished to see the army together. This had 
a being, a place, a power, beyond the aggregate of its individual 
units. A review was therefore held, in completeness and most 
careful order. Slowly he rode along front and rear of the opened 
ranks, that he might see all sides of things as they were. Every 
horse was scanned: that is one way to know the master. We 
could see the deep sadness in his face, and feel the burden on his 
heart, thinking of his great commission to save this people, 
and knowing that he could do this no otherwise than as he 
had been doing, — by and through the manliness of these men, — 
the valor, the steadfastness, the loyalty, the devotion, the 
sufferings and thousand deaths, of those into whose eyes his were 
looking. How he shrunk from the costly sacrifice we could see ; 
and we took him into our hearts with answering sympathy, 
and gave him our pity in return. 

There came a day of offering, not of his appointing. His day 
came; and a shroud of darkness fell on us. The surrender was 
over; the all-commanding cause triumphant. Lee's array had 
ceased to be. That solid phalanx we had faced through years 

23 



of mortal struggle, had vanished as into air. The arms that 
had poured storms of death upon us, had been laid at our feet 
The flags that had marked the path of that manly valor which 
gave them a glory beyond their creed, had been furled forever. 
The men who in the inscrutable workings of the human will had 
struck against the flag that stood for their own best good, were 
returning to restore their homes and citizenship in a regenerated 
country. 

We were two days out from Appomattox, — a strange vacancy 
before our eyes; a silent joy in our hearts. Suddenlv a foam- 
flecked, mud-splashed rider hands a telegram. Xo darkest hour 
of the dismal years ever brought such message. "The President 
assassinaled! Deep plots at the Capital!" How dare to let the 
men know of this? Who could restrain the indignation, the 
agony, the frenzy of revenge? Whether they would turn to 
the destruction of every remnant and token of the rebelHon 
around them, or rush to the rescue of Washington and ven- 
geance upon the whole brood of assassins, was the alternative 
question. We marched and bivouacked with a double guard 
on our troops, and with guarded words. 

Two days after, came from the War Department the order 
to halt the march and hold all still, while the funeral farewell 
was passing at the capital. Then why not for us a funeral? 
For the shadow of him was to pass before us that day, and we 
would review him! 

The veterans of terrible campaigns, the flushed faces from 
Appomattox, the burning hearts turned homewards, mighty 
memories and quenchless love held innermost; — these were 
gathered and formed in great open square, — the battered flags 
brought to the front of each regiment; the bright arms stacked 
in line behind them ; sword-hilts wreathed in crape ; chief offi- 
cers of the Corps on a platform of army-chests at the open face 
of the square, — their storied flags draped and clustered in signif- 
icant escutcheon. The commander of the Division presiding, — 
the senior chaplain called beside him. The boom of the great 
minute-guns beats against our hearts; the deep tones echoing 
their story of the years. Catching the last note of the cannon- 
boom, strikes in the soulful German band, with that wondrous 
"Russian Hymn" whose music we knew so well: 

24 



"God the All-terrible; Thou who ordainest 
Thunder Thy clarion, and Hghtning Thy sword!" 

that overmastering flood of whelming chords, with the breath- 
stilling chromatic cadences, as if to prepare us for whatever 
life or death could bring. 

A few words from the commander, and the warm Irish heart 
of the chaplain wings its eloquence through the hearts of that 
deep-experienced, stern, loving, remembering, impressionable 
assembly. Well that the commander was there, to check the 
flaming orator! Men could not bear it. You could not, were 
I able to repeat it here. His text was thrilUng: "And she, being 
instructed of her mother, said: 'Give me here the head of John 
the Baptist in a charger'!" Then the application. Lincoln 
struck down because so high in innocence, in integrity, in truth, 
in loyalty, in fidelity to the people. Then the love he bore to 
them, and they to him; that communion of sorrows, that brother- 
hood of suffering, that made them one with him in soul. Then 
the dastard hand that had struck him down in the midst of acts 
of mercy, and words of great-hearted charity and good will- 
The spirit of hate, that struck at his life, was the spirit that struck 
at the life of the people. 

"And will you endure this sacrilege," he cried. "Will you not 
rather sweep such a spirit out of the land forever, and cast it, root 
and branch, into everlasting burning!" Men's faces flushed and 
paled. Their muscles trembled. I saw them grasp as for their 
stacked muskets, — instinctively, from habit, not knowing what 
else, or what, to do. The speaker stopped. He stood trans- 
fixed. I seized his arm. "Father Egan, you must not stop! 
Turn this excitement to some good!" "I will," he whispers. 
Then, lifting his arm full height, he brought it down with a 
tremendous sweep, as if to gather in the whole quivering circle 
before him, and went on. "Bui better so! Better to die glorious, 
than to live infamous! Better to be buried beneath a nation's 
tears, than to walk the earth guilty of a nation's blood! Better, — 
thousand-fold, forever better, Lincoln dead, than Davis living!" 

Then admonished of the passion he was again arousing, he 
passed to an exhortation that rose into a prayer; then to a paean 
of victory; and with an oath of new consecration to the undying 

25 



cause of freedom and right, he gave us back to ourselves, better 
soldiers, and better men. 

That was our apotheosis of Lincoln. He passed up through 
the dark gate we knew so well. And now when the eyes that 
were wont to see him in earthly limitations, behold him high 
amidst the deathless ranks marshalled on the other shore, he 
stands in unfolded grandeur. Solitary on earth; mightily 
companioned, there! 

He stands, too, upon the earth: 

"As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, 
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm ; 

Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, 
Eternal sunshine settles on its head !" 

His magnanimity has touched the answering heart of the 
chivalrous South. To day, all do him reverence. 

There he stands, — like the Christ of the Andes — reconciler 
of the divided ! 

And more than this. A true fame grows. Contemporary 
antagonisms fall away. Prejudice and misconception are 
effaced by better knowledge. The pure purpose is revealed 
under broader lights. The unforeseen, far-reaching good effects 
are more and more acknowledged. The horizon widens; the 
image lifts. Land after land, year after year; nay, — century 
upon century, recognize the benefactor as they come to realize 
the benefaction. 

So, more and more for the Country's well-being, will sound the 
symphony of that deep-themed second Inaugural, majestic 
as the second giving of the law; and that Gettysburg speech, 
from his open heart, glorious with devotion, sublime wth 
prophecy. Beyond the facts which history can record, — the 
deliverance and vindication of a people in peril of its honor 
and its life, and the revelation of the storcd-up powers vouch- 
safed to him who is charged with the salvation of his country, — 
there will be for this man an ever unfolding record. 

More and more the consecrating oath of that great purpose: 
"With malice towards none; with charity for all; jollowing the 
right, as God gives us to see the right," will be the watch -word 

26 



of the world. Coming time will carry forward this great example 
of the consecration of power, self-commanding, and so all- 
commanding, for the well-being of the people, and the worth of 
man as man. This example, lifted up before the nations, 
support and signal of the immortal endeavor,— the human 
return to God ! 

So we look forward, and not backward, for the place of Abra- 
ham Lincoln! 



27 



Second Inaugural Address of 
President Abraham Lincoln. 

DELIVERED AT WASHINGTON D C. 
SATURDAY MARCH 4 1865 

Read by Captain John P. Green. 

Fellow-Countrymen: At this second appearing to take the 
oath of the presidential ofl&ce, there is less occasion for an ex- 
tended address than there was at the first. Then a statement, 
somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and 
proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which 
public declarations have been constantly called forth on every 
point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the at- 
tention and engrosses the energies of the nation, httle that is 
new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which 
all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to my- 
self; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to 
all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it 
is ventured. 

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all 
thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. 
All dreaded it — all sought to avert it. While the inaugural 
address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether 
to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the 
city seeking to destroy it without war — seeking to dissolve the 
Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties de- 
precated war; but one of them would make war rather than let 
the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than 
let it perish. And the war came. 

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not 
distributed generally over the Union, but locahzed in the South- 
ern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful 
interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause 
of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest 

29 



was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, 
even by war; while the government claimed no right to do more 
than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. 

Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the dura- 
tion which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that 
the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the 
conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, 
and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the 
same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes his 
aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should 
dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from 
the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that we be 
not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered — that 
of neither has been answered fully. 

The Almighty has his own purposes. "Woe unto the world 
because of offenses! for it must needs be that offenses come; 
but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall 
suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, 
in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having 
continued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, 
and that he gives to both North and South this terrible war, 
as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall 
we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes 
which the believers in a living God always ascribe to him? 
Fondly do we hope — fervently do we pray — that this mighty 
scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that 
it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two 
hundred and fifty years of unrequitted toil shall be sunk, and 
until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid bv 
another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand 
years ago, so still it must be said, "The judgments of the Lord 
are true and righteous altogether." 

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness 
in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to 
finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to 
care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, 
and his orphan — to do all which may achieve and cherish a 
just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations. 



30 



LINCOLN 

Read by the Author, Mr. Hermann Hagedorn 

Let silence sink upon the hills and vales! 

Over the towns where smoke and clangor tell 
Their glad and sorrowfully noble tales 

Of women bent with care, of men who labor well, 
Let silence sink and peace and rest from toil. 

Oh, vast machines, be still! Oh, hurrying men. 
Eddying like chaff upon the frothy moil 

Of seething waters, rest! In tower and den, 
High in the heavens, deep in the cavernous ground. 
There where men's hearts like pulsing engines bound. 
Let silence lull with loving hands the sound. 

Silence — ah, through the silence, clear and strong, 
Surging like wind-driven breakers sweeps a song ! 

Out of the North, loud from storm-beaten strings, 
Out of the East, with strife-born ardor loud. 
Out of the West, youthful and glad and proud. 

The cry of honor, honor, honor, rings. 
And clear, with trembling mouth 
Sipping in dreams the bitter cup, the South 

Magnanimous unfeigned tribute brings. 

Oh, prosperous millions, hush your grateful cries! 
The sanctity of things not of this earth 
Broods on this place — 
"Wide things and essences that have their birth 
In the unwalled, unmeasured homes of space; 
Spirits of men that went and left no trace — 
Only their labor to attest their worth 
In the world's tear-dim, unforgetting eyes: 
Spirits of heroes! Hark! 
Through the shadow-mists, the dark. 
Hear the tramp, tramp, tramp of marchers, living, who were cold and stark! 
Hear the bugle, hear the fife ! 
How they scorn the grave ! 
Oh, on earth is love and life 

For the noble, for the brave. 
And it's tread, tread, tread! 
From the camp-fires of the dead. 
Oh, they're marching, they are marching with their Captain at their head! 
Greet them who have gone before! 
Spread with rose and bay the floor — 
They have come, oh, they have come, back once more! 

31 



Give for the soldier the cheer, 
For the messmate the welcoming call, 
But for him, the noblest of all, 
Silence and reverence here. 
Oh, patient eyes, oh, bleeding, mangled heart 
Oh, hero, whose wide soul, defying chains, 
Swept at each army's head. 
Swept to the charge and bled. 
Gathering in one too sorrow-laden heart 
All woes, all pains: 

The anguish of the trusted hope that wanes, 
The soldier's wound, the lonely mourner's smart 
He knew the noisy liorror of the fight. 
From dawn to dusk and through the hideous night, 
He heard the hiss of bullets, the shrill scream 

Of the wide-arching shell, 
Scattering at Gettysburg or by Potomac's stream, 
Like summer showers, the pattering rain of death 
With every breath. 

He tasted battle and in every dream, 

Trailing like mists from gaping walls of hell, 
He heard the thud of heroes as they fell. 
Oh, man of many sorrows, 'twas your blood 
That flowed at Chickamauga, at Bull Run, 
Vicksburg, Antietam and the gory wood 
And Wilderness of ravenous Deaths that stood 
Round Richmond like a ghostly garrison: 
Your blood for those who won, 
For those who lost, your tears! 
For you the strife, the fears, 
For us, the sun! 
For you the lashing winds and the beating rain in your eyes 
For us the ascending stars and the wide, unbounded skies. 

Oh, man of storms! Patient and kingly soul! 

Oh, wise physician of a wasted land! 

A nation felt upon its heart your hand. 
And lo, your hand hath made the shattered, whole 
With iron clasp your hand hath held the wheel 
Of the lurching ship, on tempest waves, no keel 

Hath ever sailed. 

A grim smile held your lips while strong men quailed. 

You strove alone with chaos and prevailed; 
You felt the grinding shock and did not reel. 
And, ah, your hand that cut the battle's path 
Wide with the devastating plague of wrath, 

Your bleeding hand, gentle with pity yet. 

Did not forget 
To bless, to succor and to heal. 



Great brother to the lofty and the low, 

Our tears, our tears give tribute ! A dark throng. 

With fetters of hereditary wrong 
Chained, serf-like, in the choking dust of woe, 
Lifts up its arms to you, lifts up its cries! 
Oh, you, who knew all anguish, in whose eyes, 

Pity, with tear-stained face, 
Kept her long vigil o'er the severed lands 

For friend and foe, for race and race; 
You, to whom all were brothers, by the strands 

Of spirit, of divinity, 

Bound not to color, church or sod. 
Only to man, only to God ; 
You, to whom all beneath the sun 

Moved to one hope, one destiny — 

Lover of liberty, oh, make us free ! 
Lover of union. Master, make us one ! 

Master of men and of your own great heart, 

We stand to reverence, we cannot praise. 

About our upward-straining orbs, the haze 
Of earthly things, the strife, the mart, 

Rises and dims the far-flung gaze. 

We cannot praise! 
We are too much of earth, our teeming minds. 
Made master of the beaten seas and of the conquered winds. 

Master of mists and the subservient air, 
Too sure, too earthly wise. 
Have mocked the soul within that asks a nobler prize. 

And hushed her prayer. 
We know the earth, we know the starry skies, 
And many gods and strange philosophies; 

But you, because you opened like a gate 

Your soul to God, and knew not pride nor hate, 
Only the Voice of voices whispering low — 
You, oh my Master, you we cannot know. 

Oh, splendid crystal, in whose depths the light 

Of God refracted healed the hearts of men. 
Teach us your power! 
For all your labor is a withered flower 

Thirsting for sunbeams in a murky den, 
Unless a voice shatters as once the night. 

Crying, Emancipation! yet again. 
For we are slaves to petty, temporal things. 

Whipped with the cords of prejudice, and bound 
Each to his race, his creeds, his kings, 

Each to his plot of sterile ground. 

His narrow-margined daily round. 

33 



Man is at war with man and race with race. 
We gaze into the brother's face 

And never see the crouching, hungry pain. 

Only the clanking of the slavish chain 
We hear, that holds us to our place. 

Oh, to be free, oh, to be one! 
Shoulder to shoulder to strive and to dare ! 
What matter the race if the labor be done, 
What matter the color if God be there? 
Forward, together, onward to the goal I 
Oh, mighty Chief, who in your own great soul. 
Hung with the fetters of a lowly birth, 
The kinship of the visionless, the obstinate touch of earth, 
Broke from the tethering slavery, and stood 
Unbound, translucent, glorious before God! — 
Be with us. Master! These unseeing eyes 
Waken to light, our erring, groping hands 

Unfetter for a world's great needs! 
Till, like Creation's dawning, golden through the lands 
Leaping, and up th' unlit, unconquered skies, 

Surging with myriad steeds, 
There shall arise 

Out of the maze of clashing destinies. 
Out of the servitude of race and blood. 
One flag, one law, one hope, one brotherhood. 



34 



Address at the Dedication of the Cemetery 
at Gettysburg November 19 1863 

Read by Brevet Major R. Dale Benson. 

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on 
this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedi- 
cated to the proposition that all men are created equal. 

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that 
nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long 
endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We 
have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting 
place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might 
live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. 

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not conse- 
crate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living 
and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above 
our poor power to add or detract. The world will httle note, 
nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget 
what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedi- 
cated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here 
have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here 
dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these 
honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which 
they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly 
resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this 
nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that 
government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall 
not perish from the earth. 



35 



COMPLIMENTARY CONCERT 

BY THE 

UNITED STATES MARINE BAND 

TENDERED TO 

THE UNION LEAGUE OF PHILADELPHIA 

BY THE 

commandery of the state of pennsylvania 
Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States 

Friday Afternoon, February 12 1909 
3 to 5 o'clock 



March — Lincoln Centennial (new) 
Overture — "Tannhauser" 

Serenade 

Paraphrase — "Lorely" . . . . 
Suite — L'Arlesienne No. i . . . 
Waltz — The Bachelor 
ItaUen Serenade "Lola"'. 
March — The Loyal Legion 



Sanford 

Wagner 

Schubert 

Nesvadba 

Bizet 

Santelmann 

Friedcmann 

Sousa 



Lieutenant William H. Santelmann, U. S. M. C. 

Leader of Band 



36 



jdilitary 0rder of the Iloyal Ilegion of the United ^tates 

Headquarters Commandery of the State of Pennsylvania 



Circular No. 34. ^ 

Series of 1908. Y 

WTiole No. 640. ) 



Philadelphia, November 2, 1908. 



I. The Companions named constitute the General Committee 
of Arrangements for the Celebration of the One Hundredth 
Anniversary of the Birth of Abraham Lincoln, Friday, February 
12, 1909. 



RECEPTION 



Companions R. Dale Benson 

Powell Stackhouse 
Horace Neide 
William A. Wiedersheim 
Joseph Ashbrook 
James A. Beaver 
Frederick I. Naile 
Samuel Goodman 
Edwin N. Benson 



John Sailor 
Julius A. Kaiser 
H. S. Huidekoper 
George A. Lyon 
Thomas Bohannan 
S. Emlen Meigs 
Ellicott Fisher 
S. L. P. Ayres 
Thomas B. Harper 



DECORATIONS 



Companions Sylvester Bonnaffon Jr 
Noble D. Preston 
Noah H. Swayne 2d 
L. W. Hicks 



John E. Doughty 
F. V. Bonnaffon 
John E. Reilly 



PROGRAMME 



Companions John P. Nicholson 
John P. Green 
E. A. Landell 



William H. Lambert 
John P. Taylor 



INVITATIONS 



Companions George W. Melville 

Thomas Skelton Harrison 



John P. Nicholson 
John O. Foering 



37 



THE PRESENCE OF VETERAN ORGANIZATIONS 

Companions Robert B. Beath John C. Brown 

J. P. S. Gobin E. M. Boyle 

Moses Veale N. W. Sample 

H. C. Demming W. H. Hutt 

Geo. Stephenson Clark L. Buch 

L. G. McCauley W. W. Wallace 

C. F. Gramlich L. R. Fortescue 
E. J. Allen 



CHARGE OF ACADEMY OF ML'SIC FEBRUARY 12 1909 

Charles I. Kent 
Alfred Weeks 



Companions Walter George Smith 
B. Frank Betts Jr. 
William C. Wiedersheim 
E. H. Bell 
E. Stanley Perkins 
H. L. Heulings 



W. S. Ashbrook 
William J. McMichael 
Francis C. Dade 
F. C. Gillingham 



MUSIC 



Companions O. C. Bosbyshell 
James F. Rusling 
John F. Hanscora 
Hunter Brooke 
Joseph H. Thomas 



Robert Huey 
William F. Potter 
Augustine T. Lynch 
I. W. Heysinger 



WILLIAM C. WILLIAMSON, Treasurer 

II. The Committees will meet upon notice from the 
Commander for organization. 

By command of 

Rear-Admiral GEORGE W. MELVILLE U. S. N. 

Cornmander 

JOHN P. NICHOLSON 
Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel U. S. V. 
Rtxorder 



38 



Press of 

John T. Palmer Company 

Fifth and Locust Sts. 

PHILADELPHIA 



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